Fitness, a Film and of course, Family Fun Night!

The last weekend of the first quarter is already history! It seems like this year's weekends are disappearing as fast as the taxpayers' money in the stimulus bill! But as usual, the McCarthy family cherishes every minute!

My start to the weekend, was when I pulled into our driveway after work on Friday and saw this written in chalk for me! God has really blessed me with such a loving and caring son!!!

Liesel was the first up on Saturday, so that she could be at a local high school at 7:00am for a Kiddies Resale. She came back with clothes and 2 items that made her Nathan's best friend for a long time. She found a toy garbage truck and a tow truck for Nathan, and these became Nathan's main form of entertainment for the entire weekend! Later that morning, since the sun was shining, we packed Nathan's bicycle and Josh's stroller into the trunk of our car and drove to our favorite recreation center! The sunshine was slightly deceiving, because we felt a definite bite in the air as our casual stroll around the grounds turned into a brisk walk. It was lovely to be outside and a bonus to get this unexpected workout. After the walk, Nathan headed for the playgrounds and after about 16 minutes we headed back home, where we discovered that the actual temperature outside was around 2C/35F!!!

That afternoon, I decided I needed to burn a few hundred more calories and went for another run around our neighborhood. This time I managed two laps. My goal is eventually to make 5 laps (5km/3 miles), but at my level of enthusiasm for running, don't expect to read about that until 2010!

That evening was our weekly family fun night, and Nathan chose to play board games! If he were in Vegas, he would be a millionaire with the luck that he had on Saturday night! We all had a fun time playing UNO, junior SCRABBLE and ICE-CREAM (game, not dessert)!

The next day, Liesel and I had a rare opportunity to go on a date, as we arranged a babysitter for the boys. We drove to Crocker Park to watch the movie "Duplicity". This was a very complicated spy vs spy movie, which only unraveled the plot right at the end. Wasn't as entertaining as we hoped for, but we did at least get to spend some time alone, and that was our goal!

Another highlight for the whole family, was to be able to talk to AND see most of our immediate family via webcams over Skype! This is why I love technology, as now Nathan's and Josh's grandparent's, aunts, uncles, and cousins can watch them grow up. A video call is also so much more emotionally satisfying, and it seems to make the distance between the two continents much less as we catch up with one other, face to face!

Birds singing, Baseball and Baby's laughter - Life Is Good!

This weekend couldn't have come sooner for me, as this past week was very emotionally taxing! My company had earlier announced that they would be laying off people in my division, yet no numbers or set date was given. Eventually we found out that Wednesday was the day that the affected people would be notified. Wednesday arrived, and my manager, and his manager still had no idea if anyone in their teams would be cut. The team and management nervously awaited a dreaded phone call or e-mail. By noon, none of us had received any notifications, when an announcement was made that all affected parties had been notified and the rest of us were "safe". Praise God that no-one in my team was let go, however, I personally know three people who were let go! It was hard to see colleagues go through such an unfair and harsh experience! Please remember them in your prayers.

Friday, March 20, 7:44am marked the official time that Spring tickled the eastern timezone of the United States. Accompanying it, was a number of milder days, sunshine and temperatures (mostly) above freezing. Of course, any day above freezing is celebrated here! Even the mild, overcast days are enough to encourage us to venture outside and revel in the fresh air!
Friday night we rented a DVD, "The Deal", to relax to. Thankfully, we only paid $1 for that movie because it turned out to be a total dud! The only redeeming feature of the DVD was that a lot of it was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa (which we didn't know about beforehand!) It was refreshing hearing the South African accents and seeing some of its beautiful scenery again!

My reasons for living :)
On Saturday morning, Nathan and I made a trip to Walmart, where I decided to introduce Nathan to the sport of Tee ball. Basically Tee ball is baseball for children, so I purchased Nathan his first baseball glove and official Tee ball! Of course, the rest of the morning we had to play some baseball outside, which was a great alternative to playing baseball indoors on the Wii!

Saturday evening was again our Family Fun night, where Nathan, Liesel and myself played board games together. We each had an opportunity to choose a game, and we all won some, lost some and had stacks of fun in between! After the excitement, and once Nathan had been but to bed, Liesel and I watched the DVD "Fireproof"! The acting reflected the low budget of the production, but it was the storyline and the lessons within that made this movie thoroughly enjoyable. We highly recommend this movie for any married couple!

On Sunday, we attended church where we had some awesome worship and a fine sermon! Afterward, we headed home to a delicious roast lunch, preceded by some more baseball practice in the front yard! What made Sunday special, was that we could speak to all our parents, and the boys' two aunts via Skype telephony technology! Skype also allows the grandparents to see their grandchildren using the webcam, and my mom was privileged to hear little Josh laughing uncontrollably! There is no better sound in the world, that instantaneously dissolves one's fears, worries or cares, than a infant laughter! Thanks Josh for that beautiful ending to my weekend!

The Great Outdoors!

This weekend we were blessed to have phenomenal weather this weekend. Spring is no longer a rumor, and evidence of it is appearing everywhere! For Clevelander's, we never take this for granted, so we get out and enjoy it! Even though the temperature was hovering around 34F/1C on Friday afternoon, Nathan and I put on our jackets and spent some quality time in our Vitamin D saturated back yard.


We awoke on Saturday to the sounds of birds singing, and a beautiful blue canvas for the sky! Liesel hit a local Kiddies Sale and came back with the bargains that we now expect from her! She got a number of clothes for Nathan at $1 each, and some educational wooden toys for Josh for under $5 - so she lived up to her reputation!!! You go girl!!!

When she returned I went to go and take a Nissan Rogue on a test drive. It was a very impressive vehicle, and the salesmen made a very tempting offer to me. They offered to pay off the last two payments of my existing lease, amongst other things. I was even told to take the new car home for a couple of hours to show Liesel and get her approval. However, I returned the car and climbed back into my Honda and drove home. We decided that in these uncertain economic times, it would not be wise to enter into a financial commitment..... Sigh, so close, yet so far!

Later that afternoon, I took Nathan on an outing to one of his favorite playgrounds where we could release some energy after the long North East Ohio winter! On the way home, we made a detour past the lake and saw the beautiful blue waters of Lake Erie again. The ice layer has finally succumbed to the warmer weather! When we got home, we met up with Liesel who had just returned from a walk around the neighborhood with Josh! We all went inside, ate supper and then settled down for Family Fun night! Madagascar was the movie of the night, which kept Nathan (and me) entertained for 80 minutes!

Sunday, with its glorious weather (again) saw us in the regular morning routine of going to Church! We thoroughly enjoyed Church today, great worship and a great message! Liesel and I also got to chat to our families back in Southern Africa and were able to show the grandparents how their newest grandson is thriving on his Soy formula!
That afternoon, we wanted to go on a family walk around the neighborhood, but Nathan didn't share our enthusiasm. So to make it more appealing to him, we told him we were going on a scavenger hunt - and he had to find the items on the list to win a prize! Needless to say, we had a great walk with everyone.... and Nath collected his prize of some Hershey Kisses (chocolate)!

Now maybe I need to arrange a scavenger hunt at work for myself.........

Floodgates of heaven!!!

First of all, I do apologize for this delayed posting. Due to circumstances beyond my control, the hours flew by, without pausing for me to catch up with my weekly blogging tasks. Well, we did in fact actually lose one hour on Sunday morning at 2am as Daylight savings here in the USA officially took effect!

The weekend craziness began on Thursday night when we were invited to Nathan's school to view his artwork. The school had a Circus theme for the children and they were very proud to show us their many creative masterpieces! Have a look at this hat and T-shirt that Nathan made!


On Friday night, we had our friends, Ian and Renae, over for dinner. They have just moved into their first house down the road from us! We had a great time together, eating, playing Wii and sharing hilarious stories from our pasts. During the laughter, we discovered that we have so much in common with them, even though we originated from two different continents! Here is Ian doing his best at the Ski Jump.....


Saturday was also hectic, and rainy! In the morning, Liesel and Nathan did their regular Library Pilgrimage. Then after lunch I headed to my local Honda dealership to see what they had to offer me, as my current lease is expiring soon. After test driving the CR-V and Accord, they were hungry to get my signature, and a deposit from me. It almost seemed desperate, and turned me off - so I quickly made up an excuse and hot-footed it out of there! I got home to find the rest of the family playing outside on the driveway. Nathan was showing us his amazing spelling skill, and wrote the following on our driveway, without any help from us: Sam, Max, Owen (his 3 friends), ice, God, cat, dog, mom, dad and Nathan McC! He is amazing and often surprises us with his brilliance!

That evening, after bathing the boys I headed to our church's Annual Big DAWG event! This is an evening for men to test their skills against one another in a variety of pre-determined events. These scores are then added up to get the top 16, and then finally the TOP DAWG is determined by a knockout competition! Some of the events included tossing a football through a tire (tyre), shooting baskets on a full sized basketball hoop, corn hole, Wii golf, billards, bean bag toss, a memory game and a dinosaur puzzle! I, unfortunately, did not make the finals, and I blame my childhood in South Africa, that sheltered me from the US sports of basketball and football! But I am proud to announce I was the highest finishing (read 'only') South African male that evening :)

On Sunday our pastor shared a miraculous story of God's provision for us, even in these tough economic times! He said that during that week, checks (cheques) totaling around $850 000 were received by the church, to pay off the outstanding mortgage! God is truly incredible if you think that our church is now debt-free in 2009, the most difficult financial year in recent history! God is good!

More rain fell through the day, and our creek just behind our back yard rose significantly. It was rather nerve-wracking watching this deluge of water pass by within feet of our yard! But I am happy to report that the water levels have fallen back down to its normal levels :)

Winter workout

Our week was definitely one of our more laid back ones. On Monday, Nathan was diagnosed with Strep throat, and had to give school a miss on Tuesday. Monday was also Nathan's Opa's 60th birthday!! To celebrate on this side of the Atlantic, Liesel and Nathan baked her dad a delicious chocolate cake! Too bad he wasn't here to enjoy it with us, but Nathan, Liesel and myself didn't mind devouring it on his behalf!! So that set the tone for the rest of the week and the weekend.

On Saturday, I helped a friend move from an apartment to their first house. Later Nathan and I took them some cookies that Nathan and Liesel baked earlier that day, to enjoy, because we know how much sweat and hard labor goes into a move like that :)

The rest of the weekend entailed indoor activities due to the freezing weather outside. A lot of Wii and Wii Fit was played - much to Nathan's delight. However, one of the more unpopular rituals bundled with the Wii Fit, is the weigh in. Let's just say that the Wii Fit convinced me that I needed to do something about my increasing BMI, pushing me to upper limits of "Normal". So today actually got off my backside and I donned some winter exercise gear, and ventured into the 5F (-15C) weather!! I completed one lap of my neighborhood road (about 0.6 miles/1km) in 6 minutes. But it did take me over an hour to recover :P Hopefully the more frequently I do that, the shorter my recovery time will be! Now if only I can find the motivation to do that again..... and again and again!